Monday, June 4, 2007

Rosalind Russell - 100th Anniversary

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rosalind Russell, one of Hollywood’s most sassy fast-talking leads in an age of clever and sassy independent women. Since the earliest days of women’s involvement in theater (which was much later than men’s), the prominent roles for female leads were either as the victim or the whore. The film industry continued this somewhat frustrating theater tradition until actresses like Rosalind Russell came along to prove there was yet another side to women.

She was not the only one, there was an elite corps of female troopers ready to give a punch as well as take it, mask uncertainty and face adversity with a lot of lip and a classy attitude. Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur, a line of ladies who stood up for themselves and were funny to boot.

In her breezy and anecdotal autobiography, “Life is a Banquet,” (with Chris Chase, Random House, New York, 1977), Miss Russell insists she was not of the upper echelon of stars at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and even joked that she got Myrna Loy’s cast-off scripts, but when “The Women” (1939) came along, there was nobody who could do the part of busybody, troublemaking Mrs. Fowler like her. It pushed her into comedic roles after a lot of what she called “Lady Mary” roles.

One of her most memorable of these comedic films was “His Girl Friday,” (1940) a remake of the successful stage hit and film, “The Front Page.” Director Howard Hawks’ decision to change the character of Hildy to a female changed the scope and direction of the film, obviously, and took off some of the edge the original film in its biting commentary on cynical newsmen, crooked politicians, exploitation of race, and a circus of a police, crime and graft in order to slide in a romantic comedy in the middle of it all. But, there was still plenty of cynicism left, batted about like ballplayers practicing on the infield by a group of terrific character actors as the newshounds in the pressroom, including Regis Toomey, with Gene Lockhart as the smarmy Sheriff Hartwell, Helen Mack as the tragic Mollie Malloy, and John Qualen as the pitiful hangdog murderer on the lam. Billy Gilbert steals the scenes as Mr. Pettibone, the hapless, bumbling, just-doing-my-job messenger trying to deliver the governor’s pardon.

Rosalind Russell floats nicely between moods as Hildy. In her soft, intimate interrogation of John Qualen in the jail, speaking to him through a chain link pen, she lights him a cigarette from her own mouth, passes it to him and mutters, “Sorry about the lipstick, Earl,” as she softly continues her questioning. This is in contrast to her fast and furious bandying with Cary Grant, who slaps her word for word, shout for shout, goad for goad as her editor who is determined to wring one last assignment out of her and mess up her plans to marry the ever patient Ralph Bellamy. Noted for his regular guy roles, Grant even pokes fun at Bellamy by saying that his character, “looks like that fellow in the movies. Ralph Bellamy.”

In her autobiography, Russell claims that some of the script was ad libbed, and some doctored up by a writer she had hired on the side for jokes, but the lines flow together seamlessly with Charles Lederer’s script (based on the stage play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur), and make this a film that needs to be seen over again to catch all of them.

“Earl shot the professor in the classified ads,” she tells Cary Grant, and once she realizes her dream of marrying the stable Ralph Bellamy and his interfering mother is not for her, “I’m no suburban bridge player, I’m a newspaperman.” Newspaperman. In her pinstripe suit, she is one of the guys, and a better writer than all the other lying ambulance chasers barking on candlestick telephones around the table in the newsroom.

It is a great film to snag even a small part in, because everyone gets a piece of the pie as far as great lines are concerned. When Grant’s hired thug, Louie, kidnapping Hildy’s future mother-in-law gets into a car wreck with a couple of police cars, he returns shaken, moaning, “Can you imagine bumping into a load of cops? They come rolling out like oranges.”

In her book, Miss Russell recounts her famous description of acting as, “standing up naked and turning around very slowly.” There has been plenty written about the personal scandals and private lives of Hollywood stars, but not enough about how the everyday film work was accomplished. It is fortunate she documented a small part of her career for us, fortunate to have participants in Hollywood’s golden age give us the nuts and bolts of the work involved behind the magic. As always, she is a sensible and sassy voice, still.

Bob the Bear - a picture book by my twin brother & Me

Read Arte Acher's Falling Circus

Recent Comments on Past Posts:

It Happened to Jane is special to my family. My mother was selected to play the wife of Aaron Caldwell, the Chester town selectman in the movie and has a speaking part about the parking meter revenues gathered from outside his general store in the town center. My older brother was one of the cub scouts delivering coal donated by town residents to fuel Old 97. We grew up in Deep River. A few years ago a niece provided every member of music family copies of It Happened to Jane on DVD. The Connecticut River valley was truly an idyllic spot for growing up in the mid-Twentieth Century!

Thank you, the Lux Theatre broadcast was absolutely marvelous, and far superior, as you have indicated, the film. I have always admired Dorothy McGuire, and she has it all over Jean Peters. This is not as clear cut a differential between Joseph Cotton and Dan Dailey, but at this point in their grand careers, I will take Dan. Again thank you.

I jus watched this and I have to agree... the ending let me down. She left Howard Keel!!!! I've had a crush on him since seeing Seven Brides when I was 10.I did love the message that Rose Marie can be herself.But I'm still sad. Seriously, Rose Marie, you chose the wrong man.

My wife and I go back two decades for our love of “Remember the Night” and its heartwarming story...P.S. As I type these words I am reminded of the inscription my wife had engraved inside the wedding ring I now wear… “Remember The Night.”

Beautiful piece, Jacqueline, about yet another movie from the Unjustly Forgotten file. I agree a video release is decades overdue, (What is wrong with Universal Home Video? You'd think the only movies they ever made were monsters and Abbott & Costello. And don't even get me started on the pre-'48 Paramounts they're sitting on.) I count myself lucky to have scored a decent 16mm print on eBay some years back; otherwise it would have been a good 40 years since I saw it.

I happened upon this piece and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading it. Really a great appreciation of a wonderful movie. Raoul Walsh is one of my favorite directors and this is the first of his movies I ever remember seeing--it was on the big screen back in 1952 so I guess that dates me but a movie like this was ideal for my age, both for the adventure and romance.

I guess I'm going to be busy reading all your blogs that touch on events I'm familiar with.

Judgement At Nuremberg caught my attention as I had the privilege of working in it for some 60 days. But more so as the German WWII history always recall my own trials during the war.

I suppose we filmed this around 1959-1960 which is not that long after the ending of the war. Reconstruction in Europe was far from accomplished. For the audience in 1961 this history was still a part of everyone's life.

I was overwhelmed sitting in that set and listening to the greatest actors of that generation orate day after day... an endless live theater.